rational dating - can we escape the rat race be setting smarter goals?

this only works if you actually don't care what people look like. I doubt very much that this is true.

According to evolutionary psychologists as well as the cultural main stream, men are going for sensually attractive women, while women are going for men who can provide them safety

This isn't the evolutionary psychology position or the mainstream cultural position.

I think a compromise position might work for me. Maybe you too.

Turn off the pictures. Read profiles. Then turn on the pictures.

Filter first on other traits that you can glean from text, then see if you find the person physically attractive. Likely many profiles that you would have passed by on the basic of first impressions on the photos will look different to you once you've found them interesting and invested some hope in them. I'd still turn on the pictures, because being physically attracted to my partner is important to me, and I think to most everyone.

And by the way, I think the downvotes are unwarranted. You brought up a couple of decent points about the importance of looks and social competition relative to a satisfying relationship.

But I'd add to your comments that the commoditization of partners goes beyond looks to intelligence, education, career, hobbies, wealth - there's an endless list of social status and value markers that people have in their heads about "suitable" partners. People look for a bundle of "objective values" that they feel matches or exceeds their own. instead of a person they take joy in and love.

In my estimation, it is very difficult to cultivate an atractiveness function that does not highly value physical appearance. If you can do it, I think you will have made one of the most potentially important (and utility-bearing) moves on the board.

From my observation, the novelty on sexual attraction tends to be high, and fade relatively quickly. In contrast, intellectual/emotional intimacy (and just generally enjoying your lover's company) can have a sustained (and even increasing) value over the course of many, many decades...as well as having a compounding effect on other areas of your partner's attractiveness in your eyes.

It sounds so cliche that I'm having a hard time typing it without rolling my eyes and making a sour face...but... when it comes to love, find your best friend. Minimize the concern over physical attraction for the sake of optimizing toward a more comprehensive overall criteria.

We are, after all, all on the slow train to Uglyville. (Even the really pretty ones.) You'd be wise (and rational) to enjoy your company during the ride by choosing a mate on much more than looks.

One thing that's often suggested and relates to what you stated here, is getting rid of one's reliance on the affect heuristic which leads to halo effects and ugh fields. We naturally tend to assume that folks we find attractive most likely have other good qualities, and folks we find unattractive most likely lack them. However, this is an instance of biased thinking; as a matter of fact, there's only a very weak correlation, if any at all, between attractiveness and other relevant features. Most people do not realize this at all, and those who do often report being surprised and state that they only learned this through hard experience.

If you could just switch off preferences rather than trying to satisfy them, why try to satisfy any preference?

For that matter, what distinguishes "a motivator in and of itself" from ways for a man, or any individual, to boost their self esteem? Why is seeking a mate whose looks please and impress one, while looking for a mate whose mind pleases and impresses another?

Online dating is by design very artificial. In it's nature it makes people compete on superficial traits.

The alternative is to go to the places where they kind of woman that you want as a partner hang out. Of course that requires you to know the traits you are looking for.

If you have selective criteria about what kind of partner you are looking for and beauty isn't on of them it also makes sense to broadcast those.

Being able to see a person serves purposes other than finding out how attractive they are. Trust (or rather, feeling like you can trust someone) is another one. I used a roommate search site once, and noticed I usually had a much better gut feeling about people who included a photo on their profile than people who did not. (Something similar happened for people who used their real name (or something that sounded like a real name) as their user name, even if it was their first name only.)

I wonder how the profile format of online dating affects peoples' interactions and choices. I just now realized how similar the format is to online shopping. That's a bit creepy, actually. Some form of simulated speed dating seems like the obvious alternative. People who become friends online tend to meet by making posts about the same topic on various types of social sites. I'm not sure how that could be adapted to use for dating.

In person, people usually start with small talk when they meet for the first time. I wonder if it's about comfort level - talking about inconsequential things lets people establish some slight trust so that they can talk about topics they really care about later. If so, it might be difficult to make online dating deep. I notice that at least some young people have few inhibitions about telling personal things about themselves online, though, so maybe anonymity could actually help in this respect?

From the limited evidence that exists, online dating isn't very rational dating

I'm very... cynical about rationalist dating. Usually if I want to improve in a skill, I look to model myself after people who are better than I am at it. The people who are successful at dating seem to have high aptitude in the psychology of persuasion which has a very thin and amorphous border with the dark arts.

Where is the irrationality here exactly? Unattractive people are not attracting as much site traffic as attractive people, thus decreasing their odds of finding a partner... isn't that exactly what being unattractive means? Why would a rational person seek out an unattractive partner when attractive ones are available, especially given what we know about (typical) humans' sexual preferences.

I'm also not sure it's particularly rational to ignore looks of potential partners; we tend to value looks quite a bit in their own right, not to mention the substantial effect of a partner's looks on our social status and that of any future offspring. Unless you don't actually have a choice, i.e. you're settling, why not aim high initially? Especially with the low entry costs of online dating there's no reason not to take the risk and message the most attractive people available.